Columns

Girl:

My silly friend once tried to convince me that one-way (unrequited) love was the height of romance and the only true love because you get nothing from it.

Now, I don’t know whether to class my crush as ‘unrequited’; I have no idea how he might feel if he didn’t have a girlfriend, but that’s unrequited enough, and it certainly means I have no intentions of finding out. 
What my crush certainly is = infuriating, soul-destroying bliss. When you’re a part-time misanthropist, meeting anyone you actually adore, wholly and completely, is a very pleasant surprise. When that person turns out to be insanely hot to boot, it puts him in the Top Three Crushes Ever category (the other spaces are taken by a documentary film-maker who lives ‘between’ Brooklyn and Paris, and a wholesome yet jaded ex-army boy with a literature degree). 
Getting into my Top Three is about as competitive as getting a high-level job in the U.N., so when I got to spend my weekend with one of you, it hurt my heart. Actually. Physically. Hurt. Lingering hugs, heated debates, and awkward tender moments, and now I can’t get a single thing done, except write this column and day-dream about future run-ins with you, and what kind of miracle it would take to get even just one kiss. 
 
Boy:
I pulled myself away from graduation parties late Saturday night to make sure Girl was having a successful time with her above-mentioned crush. They were falling over and onto each other as they gesticulated away on the bench outside the bar. Overhung by the vine that grows around the neon blue Refuel sign, it looked like a scene from Francis Ford Coppola’s One From The Heart – Zoetrope Studios’ 1982 hit-flop romantic musical about infidelity. The image of two lovers fit perfectly to the Tom Waits soundtrack. 
Girl’s evening lilted awkwardly just like Coppola’s movie, and her date ‘spilled it’ on a walk down George St: “Yea, this is such a great time, this is the sort of thing my Girlfriend and I like to do.” We went to Karaoke and, like One From The Heart, there could only be suggested infidelity. A cute connection, an ‘Oh, if only you were single’.
That’s an unrequited crush. And for Boy? Well, I ‘blocked’ myself exceptionally well last night – I went out with Bachelorette #1 again (she was in town). But she had read Critic last week. She was not impressed with Bachelorette #3; jealous, even. How was I to know she cared? It was the inverse of Girl’s situation. Requited? Possibly. All off? Yes.